Let’s face it, there’s nothing more frustrating than preparing for and embarking on that long awaited portable outing only to discover your battery isn’t up to the job is there! If you’ve got the luxury of carrying a large battery in your vehicle then you don’t have too much to worry about, but it’s a very different story when you’ve got to carry all of your equipment in a backpack, rucksack or bicycle etc.

Finding the right compromise between battery capacity, intended power output (watts) and how long you intend being on air can be difficult. Read the rest of this entry

I spent an hour at the Heugh Lighthouse Built in 1927 and is located on the Historic Headland of Hartlepool .

I started on 40m but conditions were very poor and only worked a few contacts and these included GM0VWP/M on the Isle of Arran in Scotland , So I decided to call over to the 20m Band and started calling CQ on 14.255 and within 5 mins of calling I generated a small pile up and worked the following:-

Here’s a cheap way of making “Mini Flight Decks”.
A board that you can securely fit a HT radio to that makes it easy to keep a log of your contacts when operating outdoors, either standing or sitting with it on your knee.

It works with just the basic HT radio with a standard belt clip, with the radio and a battery saver back on it, with a fist mic too (either on the top, or on the side).

It has log book pages held in place with shock cord so they don’t blow away in the wind, and a place to keep your pen. Read the rest of this entry

I am fairly certain that one of the reasons that people tend to get confused when starting out with their Buddipole antenna is because there are so many choices of how they can use it. If you are anything like me then being spoilt for choice can lead to confusion and a certain amount of procrastination!

In this post, I will provide some tips from my own experiences and links to other resources that I found particularly helpful when first getting started with my Buddipole antenna. I have owned mine for over three years and have enjoyed using it immensely in all sorts of weird and wonderful locations. Read the rest of this entry